This lateen-sailed outrigger is an ngalowa, the fishing boat of the coast Swahili people, a deceptively simple-looking craft of breathless elegance. Beautiful it may be, but it is also - as all fishing boats must be - very practical, as was illustrated on the one occasion we took a flight....
....in a small 'plane, on our 2012 visit to Tanzania. This is the way many tourists move around the country but we preferred to see it by road, except we needed to get from Saadani on the mainland coast to Zanzibar. We were the only passengers and we had superb views as we took off from....
....Saadani Safari Lodge, which is my favourite as it is in the unique position of being in a national park, with lions wandering between the buildings at night, and on a sandy beach.
However, what made that twenty-minute journey across the Zanzibar Channel particularly memorable was....
....the sighting of a fisherman miles out to sea, alone in his ngalowa.
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